“Many components used in nuclear facilities—such as seals, gaskets, coatings, sensors, and electronic connectors—are made from polymers that must withstand extreme environments, including high radiation fields, heat, humidity, and long operational lifetimes,” Celina Horak, head of the IAEA’s Radiochemistry and Radiation Technology Section, told Nuclear News.
Depending on the material, radiation-induced changes may be a liability or a benefit: Some materials degrade under irradiation while others strengthen. Controlled irradiation can make components even more durable and versatile in harsh conditions, such as radiation–cross-linked wires and cables that are used across many industries, including in nuclear power plants. Horak said understanding these changes is essential for safety, reliability, and long-term performance.
Polymer irradiation has been applied to recycling plastic waste, creating specialty hydrogels for water retention, medical device sterilization, developing advanced materials, and more.
“When applied purposefully, radiation can unlock new material properties, enable more sustainable manufacturing pathways, and support innovation across a wide range of industrial, environmental, and healthcare applications,” said Horak.
The challenge is that the interaction mechanisms aren’t understood well enough to easily predict how a polymer may change, making it time-consuming and expensive to develop polymers for new applications.
Horak said the aim of this CRP is to facilitate faster, more reliable ways to understand and predict how polymers change under radiation.
“Today, this knowledge is fragmented, spread across decades of publications and often missing key parameters, making it difficult to design materials efficiently or optimize industrial processes,” she said. “By creating the first validated, structured global database and enabling the use of machine learning for predictive modeling, the CRP aims to accelerate innovation, reduce reliance on costly trial‑and‑error experiments, and therefore help IAEA Member States in adopting more efficient and sustainable radiation-based technologies across industry and healthcare.”
As the first step for this research project, the IAEA is seeking to curate and validate all existing relevant data into a structured database. It will then seek experiments that can be conducted to fill gaps or resolve conflicting results. Finally, it aims to develop machine learning models to predict the effects of radiation on polymers.
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